Green Options » university of maryland

New Capacitor Could Lead to Ultra-Efficient Electric Cars

Andrew Williams — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:17:23 +0000

A team of US and Korean scientists have announced a major breakthrough in energy storage that could pave the way to a new generation of ultra-efficient electric cars, mobile phones and laptops.

The prototype capacitor, much more powerful than exisiting batteries, is capable of storing power at the same massive density as a supercapacitor (an incredible 10 billion tiny capacitors in every square centimetre), but releasing it as quickly as the fastest electrostatic capacitors.

Speaking about the invention, Gary Rubloff of the University of Maryland said, “Our primary target [for this technology] is as part of a hybrid battery-capacitor system for electric cars, but there are many [potential] small scale applications, [including] better electrical storage systems for cellphones or laptops.”

The Steady State Economy: A New Financial Architecture

Chris Milton — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:50:41 +0000

An introduction to the Steady State Economy. Should this be the way globalisation goes? Read the article then add your thoughts below.

Previous posts in the “New Economic Architecture Required” series have looked at Wealth & Value, Money & Debt and Growth & Competition.

What these very brief analyses have shown is that we, the human race, are living beyond our means.

A Steady State Economy may be a way of bringing our consumption back into line, eliminating boom and bust in the process.

Market Opportunities: Consumers May Spend Over $100 Billion on Green Tech in 2008

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 14:56:18 +0000

That’s one of the major findings of the recently-released 2007 National Technology Readiness Survey (NTRS), sponsored by the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, and research firm Rockbridge Associates, Inc. This is good news for ecopreneurs, especially since the survey also notes that many consumers want to buy “green tech” products, but can’t find what they want:

…while 83 percent of adults said they wanted to protect the environment, and 59 percent said they like trying new technologies to help the environment, about 42 percent said such technologies were hard to find.

An ideal situation for ecopreneurs? Perhaps… both for new companies, and for those that want to market green products better. Both P.K. Kannan, director of the Smith School’s Center for Excellence in Service, and Charles Colby, president of Rockbridge, offer some tips for effectively tapping this market: